LGBT Wellness Roundup: May 23 2014

Each week HuffPost Gay Voices, in a partnership with bloggers Liz Margolies and Scout, brings you a round up of some of the biggest LGBT wellness stories from the past seven days. For more LGBT Wellness, visit our page dedicated to the topic here.

6HIV Increases the Risk for Cancer Twofold

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For people living with HIV, cancers are one of the largest health risks. A Danish study found that people with HIV had a twofold cancer risk compared to others: this difference was almost entirely caused by higher incidence of cancers that were smoking-related or caused by viral infections like Hepatitis C.

5Bisexual Women Report Worse Health Than Others

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A large national study found that lesbian and bisexual women were less likely to have health insurance than heterosexual women and reported higher alcohol and tobacco use. Also, bisexual women self-rated their own health as poorer than both lesbian and heterosexual women did, confirming other studies that showed bisexual women to have greater health disparities.

4New Health & Policy Agenda for Homeless LGBT Youth

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Researchers review the information on causes and stressors related to homeless LGBT youth and have distilled the evidence into a new public health and policy agenda. Among the recommendations: every homeless youth should be screened to find out if they are LGBT.

3New Correlates of LGB Youth Smoking? Violence, Identity, & Race

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Two new studies this week examined LGB youth smoking (T data were not collected in the source surveys). In one researchers found that youth who identified as LGB smoked more than youth who just slept with same-sex partners and some LGB racial minorities smoked more than others. In another researchers found among LGB youth, those exposed to violence were more likely to smoke.

2Religious Treatment Fails for Suicidal LGBT People

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Two studies out this week shed light on the increased risk of suicide in LGBT communities. The first found that suicidal people who sought out mental health or medical care did not lower their rates of a suicide attempt; those that sought out religious treatment, more common in Black LGB’s, actually increased their odds of a suicide attempt. A second study of transgender adults found that a history of violence & discrimination, which often increased during transition, increased the odds of suicidal ideation.

New research finds that ⅔ of Emergency Medicine training programs never mention LGBT; of those that do, it’s only for an average of 45 minutes in each year of training. Emergency Room Residency Program Directors want better inclusion of LGBT education in Emergency Room (ER) residency programs. The development of LGBT health curriculum for ER residents is the clear next step!